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With Weyerhaeuser's backing,
Walter could now build the Jay Peak of his imagination. The Von Roll aerial
tramway, and the new base lodge, the 'Tram Haus' (in Austrian Tyrolean style,
naturlich) were completed and ready for the January 1967 skiing crowds
(and for Montreal's Expo 67), with the matching Jay Hotel the following year.
The 'Skyline' double-chairlift was added as an alternative, or supplement, to
the tramway. Debarking at the top of the 'Bonaventure' chairlift, skiers could
hop on this upper lift for a ride to the summit. The Skyline could also be used
for late season skiing. To further facilitate this top-of-the-peak, late-season-skiing,
a portion of the ancient Pomalift was reused on the upper section of the new
'Ullr's Dream' trail (which led into the existing 'Long Trail' ski run). These
two upper lifts also took crowd pressure away from the base where all of the
other lifts started. Continuing to innovate, Walter had a pond dug high on the
northwest flank of Big Jay as a reservoir for the snowmaking equipment that
began to operate there, stretching the ski season at the higher elevations into
early June (in an attempt to add competition to the Tuckerman's Ravine Headwall
spring pilgrimage).
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Grainy
frame, from an old 16mm film
reel, of Walter leading a group
of
instructors down the Open Slope,
circa 1962 |
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Film clip courtesy Jo Cota,
Montgomery |
His ski school that same year offered the new technology of
closed-circuit video recording as an instructional aid (this was possibly
one of its first uses for this purpose). The ski school was teaching record
numbers. The future was looking rosy. Only one year later, in May of 1968,
Walter would leave Jay Peak and, shortly thereafter, skiing. Used to the almost
unquestioned control he had wielded prior to Weyerhaeuser's stewardship, he
now bristled under the corporate constraints placed on his enthusiasms and
his once spontaneously conceived and executed projects. Walter did not fit
comfortably in the suit of a middle manager, who must first produce a dry
appropriation request before getting an approval to act. The board of directors
in the early days of Jay Peak, Inc. had curtailed some of his projects that
simply did not have present funding, but managed somehow to leave him his
dignity, realizing that his personality, vitality, and inspiration were key
to the area's success.
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